I stumble into the room, some scorching on my left arm and a deep gash in my left thigh, but otherwise okay. The room would be dark except for the light of a hundred monitors, all locked into a blue error screen. They don’t cover the walls, they cluster together into kiosks while the wall space between is simply white, but a dark white hovering on the edge of gray.

Directly in the center sits a woman. Raven hair, slender build, pear shaped figure and completely nude. Recognition was instant, she had taunted me all my life, everything I had wanted to be, and yet always outside me. A familiar smile graces her lips, and I hear her thoughts, applying it correctly to the face, finally understanding what had called me here.

I replied in kind, greeting easily, not needing to question who. Our conversation was like so many I’d had before. While the world had observed my silence, these had been droning on undetected.

You’ve built me. You made all this happen. I understand. So it’s the back of my mind, my subconscious. Yes, it’s the only thing that makes sense. It fits all the criteria, the creatures were so familiar, I had wondered why.

So what are you going to do? All I have to do is think it so, and it’s fixed. It’s not that simple. But it’s still simpler even than that. Yes. You need more certainty than that. I understand, but you already know it doesn’t matter. I know.

So you aren’t going to fix it. I’m not. Even knowing you would save thousands of lives? And undo the most important moments of their lives for others. Time is immutable, what has happened shapes what will happen, who am I to say that the absence of these events will help people in the long run. So you’ll abandon the world to it’s plight? No, this won’t spread anymore. It doesn’t need to.

I sit, opposite her, and wait. Wait for the eventuality, the other to affirm our existence, to hear our story. And to write it’s ending.